Free Republic

President Trump doubled down on his criticisms against Rep. Elijah Cummings on Sunday, defending himself against allegations of racism. Trump has targeted Cummings over the Maryland Democrat’s own attacks against Trump’s immigration policies and because of attempts by House Democrats to push the Russian collusion narrative and charge the president with obstruction. "Someone please explain to Nancy Pelosi, who was recently called racist by those in her own party, that there is nothing wrong with bringing out the very obvious fact that Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district and the City of Baltimore," Trump...

Extending Virginia’s 495 Express Lanes to the Legion Bridge will require widening the Capital Beltway, but would also bring new sidewalks or bike paths in the area between the Dulles Toll Road and the Potomac River. The Virginia Department of Transportation will present preliminary designs for the toll lane extension Monday night. The extension is intended to connect to toll lanes Maryland plans to allow a private company to build over a rehabbed Legion Bridge. Construction on Virginia’s extension could begin late next year and open to traffic in 2023. Maryland has yet to formally select its toll lane designs...

That a military display on Independence Day proved to be controversial should not be surprising, even if one discounts the partisan tone of much of the criticism. Americans tend not to favor displays of military power, except in the aftermath of successful wars: The Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the 1991 Gulf War were all followed by parades. Military displays nonetheless have the benefit of showing the American people what their investment in national defense has yielded. Contrary to President Donald Trump’s assertion that “our nation is stronger today than it ever was before,” the “Salute...

Violence again erupted in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long on the evening of July 27 after hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered for a peaceful march in the afternoon to oppose an attack a week earlier by suspected triad members at the local metro station. Amnesty International issued a statement following the violence, saying that the actions of the local police had been “unacceptable.” “The violent scenes in Yuen Long tonight were in part because Hong Kong police chose to inflame a tense situation rather than deescalate it,” Amnesty said. “For police to declare today’s protest unlawful was simply wrong under...

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney reacted to the aftermath of Robert Mueller's testimony and a new push for investigating President Trump by claiming it is simply House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., trying to keep his job. Nadler is facing a primary challenge from Lindsey Boylan, a progressive candidate looking to do to him what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., did to House veteran Joe Crowley. Boylan has called for Trump's impeachment, and Mulvaney thinks Nadler is now doing the same in an effort to stave off the threat from the left. "He is falling over himself to...

In the next year or two, the seabed between Hampton and Norfolk will start to change. Mud and sand will slowly move as a custom-built boring machine tunnels alongside the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Travelers funneling through the existing HRBT may not notice the adjacent construction just on the other side of the tunnel wall. Cargo ships and Navy vessels, carrying thousands of containers and sailors, may pass over the project’s construction completely undisturbed. And that’s the way Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization officials want it to stay. “It’s something we’re really proud of,” said Robert Crum, executive director for the...

FULL TITLE: Bipartisan Senate Report: Obama Failed to Secure U.S. Election Systems, Trump Admin Making Progress A bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee documents how the Obama administration did not take effective action as Russia worked to target the U.S. election process. The same report shows that, under the Trump administration, U.S. agencies have made significant progress in working to secure election systems while vulnerabilities still remain. Not only were states confused by briefings on election threats by Obama-era agencies, the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama didn’t even tell states that a nation-state actor may have been...

The golden dome that formally sat atop Jeffrey Epstein's temple on Little St James is gone in recent photos A local told DailyMail.com that it went missing around the time that Hurricane Irma hit the island in 2017 It is believed that Epstein had removed the dome prior to the Category 5 storm making landfall The temple has been of great interest to members of the QAnon community, who had been talking about the island long before Epstein's current arrest The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on federal sex trafficking charges earlier this month has turned his two properties off the...

After my first album came out with RCA in 1984, the first single to go to radio was “It’s a Lie.” To promote the record, I was sent to Mexico to perform on one of the biggest TV variety shows in the country, Siempre en Domingo (Always on Sunday). After my performance, the host of the show, Raúl Velasco, came up to me and said, “Rudy, we loved your performance. We are taking several artists on a promotional tour of Mexico and the U.S., including Puerto Rico, for six weeks, and we want you to go.” The invitation was an...

Democrats flicked the switch to hyperbolic outrage Sunday as they struggled to outdo each other in condemning President Trump for calling Rep. Elijah Cummings a “brutal bully” to border patrol officials and suggesting he should help fix the city of Baltimore. Trump added the congressman’s district should be investigated for all of the federal money invested there despite its being a “corrupt mess.” First off was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT on CNN’s “State of the Union” who said: It’s unbelievable that we have a President of the United States who attacks American cities, who attacks Americans, who attacks somebody who...

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” anchor Chris Wallace questioned White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on President Donald Trump’s attacks on Rep Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and the city of Baltimore. Wallace said, “This goes back to what happens with the four members of ‘The Squad.’ Nobody objects to the president defending his border policy, but this seems to be the worst kind of racial stereotyping.” He continued, “Black congressman, majority-black district, I mean, no human being would want to live there? Is He saying people who live in Baltimore are new, not human beings?” (snip) Wallace...

Once Southern Democrats were forced to free their slaves, they attempted to effectively re-enslave them by passing Black Codes which required former slaves to be “apprenticed” to “employers” and punished those who left. In many cases, the fate of sharecroppers was little better than slavery. Black Codes were also called “Jim Crow Laws,” referring to an 1828 New Orleans riverboat song called “Jump Jim Crow,” in which a blackfaced performer appeared in a mocking caricature and danced: Weel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow. Many Black Codes prohibited blacks...

President Trump announced Monday that the Republicans and Democrats had reached a "compromise" on hiking government spending by $320 billion and ignoring the debt ceiling for the next two years. Trump tweeted the agreement was "another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!" Hardly seems much of a victory for the American taxpayers, though. Per AFP: The agreement raises the discretionary spending caps for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, pairing it with a suspension of the statutory debt ceiling until the end of July 2021, nearly nine months after the 2020 election. Yet it's another reminder of what we've...

The Jesuit flagship publication in the United States, America magazine, has published an article defending Marxism and comparing the murderous, atheist ideology to Christianity. In “The Catholic Case for Communism,” America writer Dean Dettloff says that the militant atheism of Marxist politics is “understandable” because “Christianity has so often been a force allied to the ruling powers that exploit the poor.” As a number of prospective presidential candidates from the Democrat party are openly donning the mantle of socialism, America took the issue one step further, suggesting that the negative reaction to “Bernie Sanders’s inspiring 2016 primary bid and the...

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared to back off his support of the 1994 crime bill that he voted for more than two decades ago. Sanders appeared Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, hosted by Jake Tapper. Tapper questioned Sanders on his past support for the 1994 crime bill, legislation criticized for sparking an era of "mass incarceration" among minority communities. Former Vice President Joe Biden authored the crime bill and has defended it as he campaigns against Sanders and others to challenge President Trump in 2020.

Posted on July 27, 2019July 26, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Three Teachings from the Lord on Prayer Last week’s Gospel featured the Lord insisting that prayer was “the one thing necessary.” This week, we see the disciples’ request that the Lord teach them on prayer. In answer, the Lord gives three basic teachings or prescriptions for prayer.I. Pattern of Prayer – The Gospel opens in this way: Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He...

This weekend we were busy marking the demi-centennial of Apollo 11's moon landing with some thoughts on The Lost Frontier and some appropriately lunar music. But 1969's giant leap for mankind coincided with one almighty flying leap for a very different kind of man: with his usual exquisite timing, Senator Edward Kennedy chose the day before Messrs Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin reached the Sea of Tranquility to drive Mary Jo Kopechne into a pond of tranquility, at least until he came flying off that bridge. And, by the time America was paying attention, Teddy had been fitted with his neck...

Two Canadian teens who are suspected of at least three murders – including an American woman and her Australian boyfriend – may have escaped from the Manitoba town where they were last seen "with someone who is not police friendly," a source close to the investigation told Fox News on Saturday. The source added that Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky may have altered their appearances and offered cash to a driver to leave the area of Gillam, a town of approximately 1,200 people in the north of the province. “Truly you wouldn’t want to stick yourself in a small town...

In 2001, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a speech at Berkeley Law, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”   Defending diversity -- taking the position that things would be better off with more nonwhites and fewer whites -- is at the very core of the social justice mentality plaguing America. The hard left doesn’t want to nominate another white male for president in 2020, or in the words of Politico, “a candidate that looks like Bernie or Joe.” In...

Weirdly for such a pagan – possibly even accursed — place, Hollywood has always produced movies that take the existence of God as a given. Merely to fleece the "rubes"? Because the Bible is a bottomless well of conveniently copyright-free material? Regardless of the studios' questionable motives and morality, George Bailey (to cite just one example) prays desperately, an angel gets his wings, and a secular, cinematic Midnight Mass is begotten. It's one I skip every year: It's a Wonderful Life (or, as I call it, Uncle Billy Must Die!) gives me hives. I'd rather re-watch The Song of Bernadette,...